Pokémon Go reassures players their email isn't vulnerable

Pokemon Go reassures players that their email isn&#039;t vulnerable.

(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

published 12 July 2016

Despite rampant rumors to the contrary, the wildly popular Pokémon Go game can't actually gain access to your email. The game's creator, Niantic, said in a statement released late Monday that although the game did request permission for "full account access," Google has confirmed that it actually only had access to "basic Google profile information (specifically, your user ID and email address) and no other Google account information is or has been accessed or collected."

Niantic has acknowledged that the access request was an "error" and it is working with Google to fix what seems to simply be the result of mislabeling. "Once we became aware of this error, we began working on a client-side fix to request permission for only basic Google profile information, in line with the data that we actually access," Niantic said in a statement. "Google has verified that no other information has been received or accessed by Pokémon Go or Niantic. Google will soon reduce Pokémon Go's permission to only the basic profile data that Pokémon Go needs, and users do not need to take any actions themselves."

The augmented reality smartphone game, which uses the GPS in your phone to create a virtual Pokémon world on top of — or interacting with — the actual world around you, has been downloaded more than 7 million times since its U.S. release last week.